Hello there!
My name is Lee Herloth (with a “Hard T”) and I work in critical infrastructure protection, specifically for an electric utility. I’ve been invited by the good folks here at Liquidmatrix.org to write a blog from time to time and I thank them for the opportunity.
I was ready to fire off a post about how utterly unprofessional, dangerous, and borderline criminal it is to see so many vendors testifying in front of the United States Congress in support of new legislation (no less then five active bills right now) designed, in title, to increase the security of varying critical infrastructures. However, I have thought better of that as it would not be fitting of a southern gentleman.
Instead, I will refrain from calling said vendors on the carpet for using their influence to back legislation that directs the government to use their auditing guidelines, risk assessment tools, or to anoint a singular person as the czar of all things critical infrastructure protection. Therefore, this post will be SANS any ranting lest the internal struggle of having done so Impact my Core values, for that surely would not be Weiss.
On any given day, there are tens of thousands of United States residents alone who are without power due to mundane reliability failures stemming from equipment failure, human error, weather, and physics – oh, and the occasional possum or two. However, “Oops! My bad”, isn’t a sexy headline. Instead, much like the current fuss around “swine flu”, that which has a catchy name will win the attention of the reactive politicians and people at large and the larger, more meaningful issues go unaddressed.
Yes, we are plugging in our critical infrastructure to your internet. We have no choice. You want cheap, clean, reliable power so off to the races we go. As with any new activity, there will be learning opportunities and missteps along the way, and we have much work to do.
I believe I have a rather unique insight into the industry and I’m passionate about protecting the infrastructure I’m charged to protect against all comers. Make no mistake about it – if we leave the future direction of critical infrastructure protection in the wrong hands, you will start to see a decrease in the reliability and affordability of your power. The cure, when offered by a snake-oil salesman, will be most definitely worse than the disease.
And with that, I bid you good day.